OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 2 August 2003 — About 1,100 Palestinian detainees in four Israeli jails went on hunger strike yesterday to express their solidarity with prisoners who protested their conditions the previous day, a Palestinian rights activist told AFP. “Prisoners in Beersheva, Nafha, Shatta and Hadarim decided to go on a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with their brothers in Shikma,” said Issa Qaraqaa who heads the Prisoners’ Club and contacted inmates by telephone.
He said the strike was being followed by 1,800 prisoners who “are also aggravated by the behavior of the Israeli prison authorities.” Israeli police used tear gas Thursday to break up a riot by Palestinian prisoners in Shikma jail near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
The protests come as the Israelis are preparing to free up to 540 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture to the Palestinian Authority. But Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ government has demanded that all 6,000 Palestinian detainees held in Israel, among them political prisoners, be freed. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements made the release of all prisoners a condition of the three-month cease-fire they declared on June 29.
On Wednesday, Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Minister Hisham Abdel Razeq warned of a rebellion among Palestinian prisoners if they were not released as part of the latest peace contacts between the sides.
Meanwhile, clashes broke out yesterday between Israeli soldiers and around 1,000 Palestinians and foreign peace activists protesting in the northern West Bank against the barrier which Israel is building, Palestinian sources said.
Israeli troops fired tear gas grenades and rubber bullets on the demonstrators, wounding seven, the sources said. None of them were badly hurt. Five of the injured were members of the International Solidarity Movement and the two others were local Palestinians.
The army intervened when the protesters started cutting the fence and attempted to destroy a gate in the barrier near the village of Deir El Ghossoon, east of the northern West Bank city of Jenin. The ISM held another demonstration in the northern town of Qalqilya on Thursday, on the same day that the Israeli authorities announced the completion of the first section of the controversial barrier.
